The Orange Box

I suppose it's about time that we actually started doing something with this site that actually concerns reviews. And as such, I shall pop the proverbial cherry here with a review of FUNimation's new release of an old classic, the Dragonball Z Season 1 Remastered Box Set, which was released on February 6th, 2007. A mouthful, ain't it? Well, let's get down to it.

The Presentation
The reason why we call it the Orange Box, is because it is just that... a big, orange brick with 6 DVDs stuffed into it. The actual package comes with a slip cover, which when taken off, reveals the actual folded set with an image of Vejiita (Vegeta for those that want the English spelling) on it. On the spine of this set, you will see what appears to be the start of one of those long pictures that will be completed by the time you have the entire series on DVD, which was a nice touch, but the problem is that it doesn't appear on the slip cover, which means you basically need to discard it if you want to see the entire image. The actual DVDs are packaged in a poor manner of one on top of another, distributed over three "pages" of the foldout. On the inside cover, there comes a little booklet with descriptions of characters and episodes for this box set. The other thing that this presentation boasts, is its Digitally Remastered from 1080p footage, widescreen video and an English Dub with Japanese music (as the fans had so long ago wanted) in 5.1 surround sound, while the broadcast English Dub, with Bruce Faulconer's music is there but with 2.0 stereo sound. And of course, there is the mandatory Japanese Dub with Japanese music, which is also presented in 2.0 stereo. We'll get into the Pros and Cons later in the review, but for now we will discuss other aspects of this set.

The Video
Well, as I had mentioned previously, this box set was said to have been remastered from 1080p High Definition film masters into widescreen presentation for the fans. There has been extensive color correction work and digital noise reduction done.

The Audio
I apologize that I once again must refer to the above about the audio. Unlike with the last Ultimate Uncut Edition releases, the broadcast English Dub is no longer presented in 5.1 surround sound, while the English with Japanese music is. The Japanese audio track remains as before, in 2.0 stereo mix. Just to mention before I forget, the English Dub for the first season is redone from the original releases of the show by Pioneer, which used the Ocean Studios for dubbing. I never personally owned the UUE releases, so correct me if I'm wrong, but the script was changed slightly from the Pioneer version and is the same in the UUE release and this new release.

Disc Contents
So what exactly do you get on your 6 discs you ask? Well, first and foremost, you are provided with 39 episodes of the show. Discs 1-6 have all 39 episodes with an average of 6 to 7 episodes per disc, the only exception being disc 6, which has episodes 36-39 and Extras. You might ask.. "What are these extras you mention?" Well, here they are:
"Dragonball Z Rebirth" - A look at the restoration process. It's an interview with one of the people that worked on the whole re mastering process for the series.
"A New Look" - A little promotional video about the new release of DBZ in its remastered, widescreen "glory".
"Textless Songs" - As this indicates, you get both the opening and ending themes without any credits on them.
"Trailers" - Also self-explanatory. This extra contains trailers for a couple of other FUNimation releases.
The other interesting aspect of this disc is the "Marathon Mode", which you can get from the main menu. This allows you to watch the entire disc without any breaks in between the episodes. So you will have the opening theme at the beginning of the disc and the closing theme at the end of the disc, only once.

Pros/Cons
So, what do I think of this set as a whole? Being a longtime Dragonball Z fan, the original news of this release was extremely exciting, but as time got closer some elements of it became less and less appealing.

First of all, it is important to think to yourself about one thing... Dragonball Z is originally a 4:3 aspect ratio show. How is it possible to create the 16:9 aspect ratio from a 4:3 original release? The answer is quite simply: Crop top and bottom. For those of you who haven't jumped off the bridge to commit suicide from this news, let me continue. That's right, this presentation is cropped and pretty poorly in some places.

Digital Noise Reduction... what does that mean? It means that your image will be slightly blurrier than the original presentation, so that the noise does not appear, but at the same time you WILL be losing some details on the animation.

English Dub with Japanese Audio... too little too late my friends at FUNimation. These days, I don't listen to dubs at all, so unless you're a lifelong dub follower, this wouldn't suit you and even then, you probably enjoy the Faulconer music more anyway.

So does that mean that it's really that bad? Not all aspects of this set are bad. I found that the 16:9 presentation wasn't the worst thing ever, especially on a nice 16:9 television set. For one, you have to imagine that FUNimation is trying to look towards the future, where 4:3 ratios will be extinct and if they ever plan to release Blue Ray/HD DVD of this, it would most likely have to be in 16:9 format as well. The point is, 16:9 is really NOT that big of a deal to me, it may be to many others.

There are things about this set that infuriate me a lot more than the widescreen format.
For one, it is a blatant lie that this footage was remastered to its previous "glory", frame-by-frame. When compared to the Dragon Box (R2 release), you can tell how poorly the FUNimation version stacks up. Yes, the colors have been altered a bit, and it does look nice at certain points, but there are many video glitches that ruin the release quite a bit. The fact that we lose detail from the scenery is yet another problem we run into with this release, because DNR (Digital Noise Reduction) does too much where it's not needed.

So the question is... what is my grade for this release and should you buy it? Overall, I would have to give this release a C+/B- rating, though many sites would probably give it a straight F just for the widescreen. The fact that its retail price is $29.99 is a hard sell point and shoots some points into its grade. So, if the things that I mentioned before don't bother you so much and you're willing to put up with FUNimation's bullshit, then this box set may be for you. I will still probably buy the ensuing bricks that come out, but my plan is to also buy the Dragon Box single DVDs overtime, so that I can have version of the show that remains faithful to the original release.

If you're still awake, after my long review, and want to find more information about this release and many other things Dragonball related, please visit one of my favorite Dragonball fan sites out there, DaizEX.com, where you can visit their forums or listen to their weekly podcast about anything and everything Dragonball. As for myself, I hope you have enjoyed the review and if you have some comments about my style, something I should change, something I should keep the same, please drop me a line or leave a comment. Jya matta minna.

Gokuu Son